"Staff Writers" - Rethinking connection between soil as a carbon reservoir and global warming

by Staff Writers

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Rethinking_connection_between_soil_as_a_carbon_reservoir_and_global_warming_999.html
Zurich, Switzerland (SPX) Oct 11, 2011

Soils store three times as much carbon as plants and the atmosphere. Soil organic matter such as humus plays a key role in the global carbon cycle as it stores huge amounts of carbon and thus counters global warming.

Consequently, the Kyoto Protocol permits the signatory countries to count soils and forests against greenhouse gas emissions as so-called carbon sinks.

Exactly why some soil organic matter remains stable for thousands of years while other soil organic matter degrades quickly and releases carbon, however, is largely unknown. The explanatory models used thus far assume that the degradation rate depends on the molecular structures of the soil organic matter.

An international team of 14 researchers headed by Michael Schmidt, a professor of soil science and biogeography at the University of Zurich, has now revealed that numerous other factors affect the degradation rate of soil organic matter in an article published in Nature.

Soil environment determines degradation rate of humus

The degradation speed isn't determined by the molecular structure of the dead plant debris, but by the soil environment in which the degradation takes place," says Schmidt, summing up the new results.

For instance, the physical isolation of the molecules, whether the molecules in the soil are protected by mineral or physical structures and soil moisture influence the degradation rate of soil organic matter. Furthermore, the researchers are able to show that, contrary to the scientific consensus, there is no humic matter in the soil and this should therefore not be used for models.

New experiments and models needed

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" Fiona Harvey" - European Union Moves Toward Banning Tar Sands

By Fiona Harvey, The Guardian

Posted on October 5, 2011, Printed on October 11, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152620/european_union_moves_toward_banning_tar_sands

Oil from controversial and environmentally destructive tar sands is likely to be all but banned from Europe after a decision on Tuesday. The move also casts doubt on the future of other controversial energy sources such as shale gas.

Tar sands (also known as oil sands) have been a target of green campaigners for several years, as the extraction of low quality oil from sands – chiefly in Canada to date – produces far greater greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling operations, and requires vast quantities of water. The exploitation of tar sands has also led to the destruction of swaths of forest and is blamed for water and air pollution.

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"Dean Baker" - David Brooks, Bard of the 1 Percent

Published on Tuesday, October 11, 2011 by Beat the Press

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-bard-of-the-1-percent

by Dean Baker

David Brooks delved deep into his storage locker of misinformation to tell readers that the idea of blaming the richest 1 Percent for the country's problems is just silly. He told us that the really big ideas aren't about reversing the upward redistribution of income from the top, they are from centrists who want to do things like cut our Social Security and make us pay more for health care. Let's have some fun with Mr. One Percent.

First he begins his piece by telling us:

"The U.S. economy is probably going to stink for a few more years. It is beset by short-term problems (low consumer demand, uncertain housing prices, too much debt) and long-term problems (wage stagnation, rising health care costs, eroding human capital).

Realistically, not much is going to be done to address the short-term problems, but we can at least use this winter of recuperation to address the country’s underlying structural ones."

In other words, Brooks wants all those people who are unemployed and losing their homes to just suck it up. Nothing is going to be done to help you: get over it.

And why is nothing going to be done to help the 26 million people who are unemployed, underemployed or have given up looking for work altogether? The reason is that people like David Brooks and rest of the 1 Percent don't give a damn about you.

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"Michael McCarthy" - Why protecting the world's wildlife is good for our wallets

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/why-protecting-the-worlds-wildlife-is-good-for-our-wallets-2364701.html

By Michael McCarthy, The Independent UK

Monday, 3 October 2011

A new world body on wildlife and ecosystems protection being set up by the UN must avoid blaming developing nations, where most of the world's biodiversity loss is occurring, says a top British scientist.

Overconsumption by rich western nations is as big a driver of global environmental degradation as the rapidly growing populations of developing countries, says Professor Bob Watson, a leading figure in setting up the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The new body – modelled on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – will assess how and why the natural world is being degraded, what it will cost society, and what can be done to halt the process.

But it must avoid rows between rich and poor countries, says Professor Watson, an ex-head of the IPCC, who is Chief Scientific Adviser to Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. "If they think this is just the white world, the developed world, telling them what to do, that'll be the end of it ... The climate debate has been, 'you rich countries got rich by using cheap fossil fuels, and now you're telling us not to use them.' We must not get into that," he said. Regional assessments of biodiversity problems must be "owned" by the regions concerned, he said. So if there is a regional biodiversity assessment of Latin America, scientists from Latin America will carry it out, not foreign scientists.

Professor Watson will play a key role at a Nairobi meeting today which will decide how the new body can be formed, probably next year. Hopes are high that the IPBES might help halt the loss of global wildlife and habitats.

The IPBES is based on the increasingly influential concept of ecosystem services, that forests rivers or peat bogs are not just parts of the natural world, but produce oxygen, provide food and store atmospheric carbon, vital in the fight against climate change.

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"Medical News Today" - High Chocolate Consumption Linked To Lower Stroke Risk In Females

Medical news Today, 11 Oct 2011

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/235756.php

Women who eat at least two chocolate bars each week appear to have a 20% lower risk of stroke, compared to females of the same age and weight who rarely or never eat chocolate, researchers from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The researchers explained that cocoa has flavonoids - powerful antioxidants that can suppress oxidation of bad cholesterol (LDL, low-density lipoprotein). LDL can cause stroke and other cardiovascular diseases.

As background information, the authors explained that several studies have clearly demonstrated that chocolate can be good for the cardiovascular system - the circulatory system which comprises the heart and blood vessels. The consumption of chocolate has been demonstrated to reduce diastolic and systolic blood pressure in randomized, short-term trials. Chocolate has also been shown to improve endothelial and platelet function, and to improve insulin resistance.

Susanna Larsson Ph.D. and team set out to determine whether chocolate consumption might have an impact on the risk of stroke. They used the population-based Swedish Mammography Cohort. 39,227 adult females had completed a questionnaire that asked 350 questions regarding lifestyle and diet factors.

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"Medical News Today" - Infants As Young As 15 Months Display A Sense Of Fairness, Altruism

Medical News Today, 10 Oct 2011

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/235712.

A new study presents the first evidence that a basic sense of fairness and altruism appears in infancy. Babies as young as 15 months perceived the difference between equal and unequal distribution of food, and their awareness of equal rations was linked to their willingness to share a toy. 

  The study has implications for nurturing human egalitarianism and cooperation. The journal PLoS ONE published the findings online Oct. 7, 2011. Co-author is Marco Schmidt, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 

Previous studies reveal that 2-year-old children can help others - considered a measure of altruism - and that around age 6 or 7 they display a sense of fairness. Sommerville, an expert in early childhood development, suspected that these qualities could be apparent at even younger ages. 

Babies around 15 months old begin to show cooperative behaviors, such as spontaneously helping others. "We suspected that fairness and altruism might also be apparent then, which could indicate the earliest emergence of fairness," Sommerville said. 

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"Kerry Trueman" - Why Danes Are So Much Happier Than Americans

By Kerry Trueman, AlterNet

Posted on October 9, 2011, Printed on October 11, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152673/why_danes_are_so_much_happier_than_americans

Americans may be deeply divided about what ails our country, but there's no denying we're a nation of unhappy campers.

Danes, on the other hand, consistently rank as some of the happiest people in the world, a fact attributed at least in part to Denmark's legendary income equality and strong social safety net.

Forbes recently cited another possible factor; the Danes' "high levels of trust." They trust each other, they trust 'outsiders,' they even trust their government. 90% of Danes vote. Tea party types dismiss Denmark as a hotbed of socialism, but really, they're just practicing a more enlightened kind of capitalism.

In fact, as Richard Wilkinson, a British professor of social epidemiology, recently stated on PBS NewsHour, "if you want to live the American dream, you should move to Finland or Denmark, which have much higher social mobility."

While we debate whether climate change is real and a tax on unhealthy foods is nanny state social engineering, the Danish are actually trying to address these problems head on.

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"Robert Kuttner" - Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley Could Be Headed Toward Collapse -- Will Obama Have the Guts to Do the Right Thing This Time?

By Robert Kuttner, AlterNet

Posted on October 10, 2011, Printed on October 11, 2011

http://www.alternet.org/story/152678/bank_of_america%2C_citigroup%2C_morgan_stanley_could_be_headed_toward_collapse_--_will_obama_have_the_guts_to_do_the_right_thing_this_time

Over the past few weeks, President Obama has at last "pivoted," in the widely used term, from emphasizing deficit reduction to focusing on jobs and taxation of millionaires. Spontaneous protest has done what the organized left failed to do; it has made Wall Street the appropriate target of diffuse economic frustrations. The labor movement has added its weight and institutional skills to these protests, and even President Obama has had some kind words for them.

Fox News and the Republicans have been usefully flummoxed, since it is awfully hard to rise to the defense of the Wall Street banks that caused the financial collapse and to retain credibility with anyone, even the Tea Party base.

But here comes the next phase of the financial crisis, and it will test President Obama's leadership like nothing else. It will also make or break the faltering credibility of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

In recent days, it has become clear that several large banks, most notably Bank of America, are teetering. Though the backlash against the giant bank's proposed five-dollar-a-month charge for debit cards has gotten the headlines, this is the least of its problems. The profits from this new charge would be chump change measured against the bank's chasms of losses, the legacy of its ill-advised purchases of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch in 2008.

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"Addicting Info.com" - Rasmussen Releases Occupy Wall Street Poll

Addicting Info.com   October 9, 2011

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/09/rasmussen-releases-occupy-wall-street-poll/

The right-leaning Rasmussen Reports returns from the field with what I think is the first poll about Occupy Wall Street.

The buried lead: At the moment, the protesters who’ve been mocked on CNN and Fox News, accused of class warfare by Mitt Romney, and handled delicately by the White House, have… decent favorable ratings.

Americans are divided on the protestors themselves.

Thirty-three percent (33%) have a favorable opinion, (and a plurality of)

Twenty-seven percent (27%) hold an unfavorable view,

Forty percent (40%) have no opinion one way or the other,

Fifty percent (50%) of Democrats have a favorable opinion. (while a plurality of )

Forty-three (43%)   Republicans say the opposite.

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"Mark Tran" - Food Crises Compromising Fight Against World Hunger, Warns UN Report

Published on Monday, October 10, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/oct/10/food-crises-fight-world-hunger

Experts identify food price volatility as a major obstacle to millennium development goal of halving global malnutrition

by Mark Tran

Food crises are jeopardising efforts to achieve the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015, United Nations food experts warned today.

In an annual report on world hunger, UN food agencies said food price volatility is likely to continue and possibly increase, making poor farmers, consumers and countries more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity.

"Demand from consumers in rapidly growing economies will increase, the population continues to grow, and further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system," the report said, adding that food price volatility may increase over the next decade due to stronger links between agricultural and energy markets and more frequent extreme weather events.

Small, import-dependent countries, particularly in Africa, are especially at risk, with many of them still facing severe problems following the world food and economic crises of 2006-2008, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in their joint report.

At a time when drought in east Africa and famine in Somalia have left 12 million people in need of aid, the report argued that such crises are challenging efforts to reduce hunger by half.

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